Parks and Rec Meme: 9/9 scenes
→ “I’m now gonna give you permanent answers to all the silly questions you’re gonna end up asking me and every other woman in this election over the next few months.”
Deadpool’s history of sexual abuse
Trigger Warning: child abuse, pedophilia, rape, incest
Let’s begin with Deadpool MAX: MAX comics are strictly for adults and the ones based off of pre-existing characters, such as Deadpool, are written in such a way as “if we were to write this character’s story in an R-rated fashion, how would we do it?” but the continuity between Deadpool MAX and other Deadpool comics should be thought of as separate.
As in the regular Deadpool continuity, Deadpool grew up in a violent and abusive household but unlike the regular Deadpool continuity we are given more details as to what type of abuse he endured.
While his father was away, Wade’s mother molested him
And when his father found out about their “relationship” he beat Wade so badly that he had to enter the hospital
His mother abandoned him and he was directly moved from the hospital into an orphanage where he underwent more abuse.
Wade found a new mother figure in a scout troop leader, a female Taskmaster, who also began to molested him. Wade escaped before they committed the “final act” but feels subsequent guilt that he led her down, the person he considers his real mother
When faced with her advances as an adult he rebuffs her
and realizes that he has some emotional issues
Besides a quick joke about how he escaped being molested by a priest there is no discussion of childhood sexual abuse in the regular continuity, although the details of his childhood are vague and said to be extremely abusive.
In Deadpool #2 Deadpool is struggling with believing that he can be a good person so he goes to Syrin for validation. Syrin is a longtime love interest of Deadpool’s but she doesn’t return his feelings, so they agree to be friends.
After Syrin’s rejection Deadpool stays outside throughout the night, drinking, until Syrin suddenly appears
The to sleep together and in the morning Syrin reveals herself to actually be Typhoid Mary
This is the very next scene:
When Blind Al presses him for information he says:
And nothing more is said on the subject.
I’m seeing a lot of people arguing that Deadpool is nothing but a joke character and nothing can be further from the truth. Deadpool is one of the few male characters of this genre that is a victim of rape; it was never funny and never will be. You may not like Deadpool, which is fine, but you cannot undermine the depth of his character.
We can all agree that the majority of Deadpool’s fan base has always been young man who idolize how powerful and overtly masculine his character is. These young men, excited to see guns and tasteless jokes, read the arcs outlined above and are given an opportunity to internalize important feminist issues that they would otherwise be conditioned to ignore simply because they are feminist issues: taking advantage of someone sexually is rape regardless of whether the victim is male or female, being vulnerable and sad and needing time to recover is nothing to be ashamed of, and being a victim does not invalidate your sexual and gender identity; it may be an overlapping issue but it is a separate one.
“No matter what I do, literally nothing bad can happen to me. I’m like a white male US Senator.”